MISMATCH NEGATIVITY IN YOUNG-CHILDREN OF ALCOHOLICS FROM HIGH-DENSITYFAMILIES

The mismatch negativity (MMN) component of event-related potentials wa s recorded from a group of young children of alcoholics (n = 19, 8 fem ales) with a high-density family history of alcoholism and from a cont rol group (n = 23, 12 females), between 8 and 15 years of age. A dicho tic listening task was used, and subjects had to pay attention to an o ddball paradigm in one ear and ignore the stimuli in the other ear. Th e event-related potentials elicited by the standard unattended tones w ere subtracted from those elicited by the infrequent deviant unattende d tones, and the MMN was measured at 10 frontal and central electrodes . No group differences were observed in peak latency, peak amplitude, and mean amplitude of the MMN. These results indicated that preattenti ve mechanisms of mismatch defection were not impaired in young subject s at high risk for alcoholism. Results are discussed in relation to di fferences in electrophysiological indexes of automatic versus controll ed information processing and in relation to the characteristics of th e sample.